On 25/11/2017 11:44, Miles Fidelman wrote:
> Ole,
>
> With all due respect,
>
> On 11/24/17 3:17 PM, Ole Jacobsen wrote:
>
>>
>> Individual members of chapters have voting rights in their
>> respective chapter and the chapters are represented on the
>> board. You can look up the details just as easy as I can.
>>
> First off, that doesn't make one a voting member of ISOC, just of a
> chapter, nor does it make ISOC anything like a traditional membership
> association.
That's correct. As ISOC Board Chair at the time when the current
constitutional arrangements were put in place, I could tell you a
lot about the whys and wherefores over a couple of beers.
But whoever said that the *Internet* Society should work like a
*traditional* membership association? We had to find something that
would work at world scale, allow for multiple types of stakeholder,
and not be subject to capture by special interests or populist
politics.
> Second, there aren't, and as far as I recall never have been, any
> chapters in New England. (A couple of time folks have tried to start
> one in Boston, and given up for lack of any reason to.)
Local chapters wax and wane, and are very subject to the personalities
and motivations of their founders. Some work, some don't. (The Geneva
chapter, of which I was the first President in ~1995 iirc, crashed
and burned by 2009 due to lack of activity, but was followed by the
current active Swiss chpater. But most of the chapters today are in
the developing world, which is great.)
Brian